Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/176

140 QUERIES.

What is the origin of this idea? Is it the shadow side of the once prevalent idea that certain spots were holy, and advantageous as fraught with supernatural gifts? Jerusalem was so to the Jews. Pilgrims used to go to Canope, in Egypt, pray and sleep on the spot, believing that in dreams they would obtain the blessing or the guidance they desired. The oracle had to be consulted at Delphi. Christ treated this notion with contempt. Is the fatality of places twin with the sanctity of places? Does the notion arise in the belief that Fate or Destiny, Ananké, is always sitting waiting to catch us. Grim as the stories are they contain a grim jest: for sometimes as a Laon a life is lost in pursuing, and sometimes, as in the tale of the "devil at Rome," the human being turns the pun to his advantage, and foils the Fiend. Is the notion of fatality in spots an enlargement of the notion "the hour is come; and the man," adding, "and the place!"